Tough Justice: Burned

“She’s at school, probably in class.” The customary steel had returned to Victoria’s voice. “I’ll text her to hang tight, and I’ll go get her myself. The Bureau can settle Anna in a safe house until we figure out if this threat has any bite to it.”

“Moretti could be bluffing. He’s probably just yanking our chains. He’s good at that.” Lara held her breath. She didn’t know if she was trying to convince Victoria or herself.

Victoria paused and then cleared her throat. “Maybe, but this is my baby girl, and I’m not taking any chances.”

“I understand that.”

“I know you do.” Victoria’s voice recovered its take-charge tone. “See if you can get anything else out of the sneaky bastard...for me.”

“Of course.”

With all her senses on high alert, Lara returned to the visitors room, the heels of her boots tapping on the linoleum as she strode toward Moretti, still sitting with the phone in his hand, his dark eyes glinting with secret amusement.

She adjusted her suede jacket before taking her seat. She wished she would’ve taken the time to change into something more professional. She needed that extra layer of confidence about now. She’d have to bluff it. She picked up the phone on her side.

“Start talking.” She yanked out the metal chair with a clang that reverberated in the small room, and perched on the edge, hunching forward. “Is Anna a target?”

Moretti chuckled deep in his throat, a dark, rumbling sound that had Lara grinding her back teeth. She didn’t blink one eyelash, holding his stare until he shifted in his seat.

A thrill of triumph zipped through her veins at the petty victory. When dealing with this monster, she had to take what she could get.

“I’ve got a deal for you... Lara.” He studied his fingernails. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

His words seemed to suck all the air out of the room, and her nostrils flared in an attempt to moderate her breathing. A few seconds passed before she thought she could speak without gasping for air.

“What is it you want to know?” Knots formed in her gut, but she allowed one corner of her mouth to lift in a show of bland interest.

“I want to know how the FBI learned about the Moretti syndicate.”

Although she felt like collapsing in relief, Lara released a long measured breath between parted lips.

Moretti, as watchful as a panther in the wild and just as dangerous, studied her mouth through the divider. His own quirked into a tight smile as if he knew his question might not be what she had anticipated...or feared.

Victoria hadn’t expressly forbidden any of the team members from discussing how they’d tightened the noose around the syndicate, so Lara made an executive decision and launched into the explanation.

“Five years ago, the FBI was working on a case of two young women, murdered, shot in the back of the head, execution style.”

Moretti clicked his tongue, but Lara wasn’t buying his sympathy.

She cocked her head. “You’ll never guess what we found tattooed on their hips.”

“Butterflies?” He propped his elbow on the table and balanced his chin on top of his hand. “Hearts?”

“Two Ms, superimposed on each other.” She felt a tingle on her upper-right arm where she’d sported her own tattoo before having it removed. “We didn’t know if the symbol was WM or MW or MM.”

“What a quandary.”

“We ran the symbol through our database of tattoos—the gang-related ones—and we got a hit.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “You got lucky.”

“That same symbol had been tattooed on a couple guys doing time for narcotics distribution. At the time of their booking they didn’t ’fess up to the origin or meaning of the tattoos, but some jailhouse talk netted us an important piece of information. The symbol was widely believed to be linked to the Moretti crime syndicate.”

“Maybe I should look up those two old friends and thank them for their service.” He narrowed his dark eyes, which glittered beneath his half-mast lids.

Goose bumps raced down her arms, and her hand jerked in her lap. Would he really punish those low-level drug dealers for getting arrested with Moretti tattoos and then blabbing about them?

Her gaze locked on his. He would.

The line of her jaw hardened. A couple of low-life drug dealers didn’t concern her. Only Anna concerned her right now.

“You do that. Of course, we’d heard the Moretti name in certain circles.”

“Of course.”

He was interrupting her with his running commentary just to needle her. Just to toy with her. Hell, he might even know this story already. He seemed to know everything else—almost everything.

“We’d heard the name over the years but never had any hard evidence to link the organization to any specific crimes. Then—” she made her fingers into a gun and pointed it at him “—you made a mistake.”

He closed his eyes, and a muscle ticked at the corner of his jaw. “I’ve made a few mistakes, Lara. Tell me about this one.”

“An FBI operative’s sister, who’d gone missing, was found in a Chicago dumpster.” Her bottom lip trembled, and she trapped it between her teeth, grateful Moretti still had his eyes closed.

“Dead, I presume.”

Ignoring his quip, she said, “Guess what we found tattooed on her hip?”

His eyelids flew open, and she recoiled under the intensity of his gaze. “Is this a guessing game? Because if it is, you must think I’m very, very stupid. Do you? Think I’m stupid, Lara?”

She thought he was lethal. Cunning. Forceful. Evil. But stupid? Never in a million years.

“We found—” she slowly sketched the symbol in the air “—the Moretti insignia. By this point I was already prepping to go undercover. Enough was enough. We were going to take you down.”

He smiled, his white teeth flashing against his olive-toned skin. Give him a few more years in the joint, and he’d be as pasty-faced as the rest of them.

“That pretty redhead had bragged about having a sister in the FBI, something she should have kept to herself. There are certain things you should keep to yourself. Don’t you agree, Lara? Certain things should stay private.”

Thinking of Cass’s devastation at the loss of her sister, Lara had the strongest urge to strike out against Moretti’s smug, handsome face.

“The rest is history. Once inside we started delving into your activities and getting a few people to talk.”

“You infiltrated, and you were very good at it. I’ll give you that.” He raised his hand to his face and traced the pad of his thumb along his jawline. “Very dedicated. Very thorough. Very deep infiltration.”

Lara swallowed. “I gave you what you wanted. Now, tell me what I need to know about Anna.”

His dark gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth to her breasts. “You did give me what I wanted.”

She pressed her thighs together, willing the heat flaring in her chest to stop spreading upward.